Yes, the Phillies enter the final week of the regular season with no second season to play for. As one member of the coaching staff said before the game, “It feels weird to be out of it.”

The Phillies and Marlins played a game of low-stakes baseball at Marlins Field, and it was a Carlos Lee walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth that sent Miami home with a 2-1 win.

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Officially, this eliminated the Phillies from the postseason, leaving them six behind the Cardinals with five to play. But the math had been overtaken by the cold, hard facts days earlier.

“That,” Charlie Manuel said, “was just a matter of time.

“Right now, we’re kind of dragging. That’s no excuse for us not to score some runs.”

“It’s disappointing,” said starting pitcher Cliff Lee, another quality start worked in vain. “I think everyone here can agree with that. We expected to win this division, make the postseason and win the World Series eventually, but obviously that isn’t going to happen.

“We just have to finish this season strong, play the right way and try to come in next spring training and start off better. We got ourselves in a pretty big hole early, and it was too big to get out of.”

If the Phillies (78-79) are going to finish with a record above .500, it will take four wins in their last five games. In the nine seasons Manuel has managed a big-league team from start to finish in a season, he has finished that season with a winning record every time.

He would like to see that string of winning seasons reach 10 — but not for his sake.

“When I look at the success we’ve had, that falls on the players ... that’s a team aspect,” Manuel said. “That’s a sign of liking to play, playing together and trying to get the most out of our club.

“As for my record, when we get to the playoffs and the World Series, you love everything about that. But in other ways, I’m not a personal record guy. I look at my team accomplished things, and I was a part of it.”

For much of the season the Phillies and Red Sox seemed to be stray cousins in each league, with high payrolls that weren’t living up to expectations. On Aug. 18 the Phillies were 55-65, the Red Sox 59-62. Entering Friday’s games, the Phils were at .500, while Boston was 69-87 and at serious risk of being a 90-loss team.

Manuel knows the Phillies could have gone down that path from struggling to awful. And he’s grateful that they didn’t.

“We easily could have gone just like that,” Manuel said. “The fact that we didn’t quit shows who they are and who our coaching staff is, that we do care about our fans.

“I felt very down when we got on the plane (after finishing the final homestand with two losses to Washington) because I felt if there was any way possible we could’ve won more games it would’ve helped our fans understand. Our fans get caught up in our team. They have their heroes, and I like to send a message that even though we didn’t win our division, we still can win our division and give it everything we’ve got. That is our main goal next year. This winter we’re going to work as hard as we can to get our team ready to win next year.”

They will look for some offense to add, and that should lead to a sigh of relief for Lee, who finished the season 6-8, the victim of brutal run support, with the Phillies scoring zero or one run in seven of his 27 starts. He gave up one run in seven innings to Miami and finished the second half with a 2.34 ERA with 102 strikeouts and just eight walks allowed in 107 2/3 innings. His only mistake was putting a pitch near Giancarlo Stanton’s bat, which he mashed for a solo homer, his 35th of the season.

“It’s just one of those things,” Lee said. “You have to give (Miami starter Mark) Buehrle some credit there.”

The Phillies tied it in the eighth when Jimmy Rollins’ single off Buehrle scored John Mayberry Jr., but Josh Lindblom gave up a leadoff double to Bryan Petersen and set up Lee’s game-winner to left.